Yahoo is currently locked in a 10-year search contract with Microsoft, which started in 2010. Under the contract's terms, Yahoo uses Microsoft's Bing search engine for search results on Yahoo sites. They have also coupled each of their search-advertising setups. As part of the deal, Microsoft receives 12 percent of the revenue Yahoo generates from search ads -- and Microsoft guarantees a certain amount of revenue for every search query on Yahoo's sites.

This revenue guarantee expired on March 31, 2013, but Microsoft extended for another 12 months on April 30. Unlike the previous revenue guarantees from Microsoft, this extension affects only the United States.

Microsoft's revenue guarantee is worth about $12 million to $15 million per quarter.

However, Yahoo said wants out of this contract in a regulatory filing Tuesday, and the new extension has made this a bit more difficult. Yahoo will likely have to wait until mid-2015 to kill the contract, which is the halfway point.

While Yahoo's search revenue managed to increase 6 percent to $409 million in the first quarter of 2013 (compared to the first quarter of 2012), Yahoo wants out of the Microsoft deal in order to possibly enter into another contract with Google.

Google could provide Yahoo with its Web search and search-advertising services, which are much more lucrative than Bing. Google and Yahoo tried to make this work in 2008, but the U.S. Department of Justice shot it down for antitrust purposes. However, Google and Yahoo could revamp the former pitch in an effort to pass regulatory issues.

The only way Yahoo wouldn't have to wait until at least 2015 to exit the Microsoft contract is if Microsoft sells Bing or revenue-per-search falls below a certain level.

Either way, it doesn't look like Yahoo will go back to developing its own search technology.

In February of this year, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said that the company's search partnership with Microsoft is not delivering.

"One of the points of the alliance is that we collectively want to grow share rather than just trading share with each other," Mayer said at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco.

quote: Can you please tell me how flat sales from both Apple and Samsung during the same period that Nokia sales dropped nearly 20% means that Apple created a "bloodbath". In fact it wasn't until after Nokia went full windows that Apple and Samsung started taking sales. If anything it was all the other companies jumping into Android that killed Nokia.With the entire market growing, 4m sales of Apple phones does not directly equal the 4m sales lost by Nokia. If Nokia went Android they would have grown with the rest of the market, especially with the attractive hardware they have.Nokia had world support and name recognition that was still outselling the iPhone in every market except for the US. They might not have maintained the massive market lead, outselling every other phone manufacture combined, but they certainly wouldn't be loosing sales like they are now.

quote: Just because a multi billion dollar company is throwing money at you doesn't mean that long term it was the right choice. Choice C was joining up with a company that has been consistently the worst selling phone OS on the market. RIM, as much as everyone has declared them dead, is still outselling Microsoft as a whole, not just Nokia. The only reason that MS has been able to maintain the Phone segment is because they use the resources from their other very successful divisions to support it.

Still better than the other options that varied between a shot in the dark and corporate suicide.

quote:OS interface is more a thing of preference then anything else. I really do not like the interface of the Windows Phone OS. That's great that it works for some people and works well for them.

Ecosystem is what a smartphone is all about, if you can't expand the functionality to suit your needs, that's a problem. What good is the OS if you don't have access to the tools, toys you want.

This is nothing against the Phone OS, but pidgin-holing your entire company into a very small niche, is going to get you a very small niche of the market. I think it was a bad decision now, and I knew it was then.

In those reports you gave me Phone 7 was 1%, WiMo was 4%... Android grew from 4 % to 23% in one year, and that was a shot in the dark? with Nokia a company that built its company around Open Source OSs. You said it, they fired the guy for some reason that was still in charge of the largest phone manufacture in the world, at a time they were still larger then the next 2 or 3 combined.

quote: Hey, while we're on the topic, check out Nokia in 2009 compared to a decade ago. Their rivals have all bounced positions, former number 2 is now number 6, current number 2 was once number 5. Nokia held market share all decade as number one, at every time, every single year, they were at least 50% bigger than number 2 and every year as big as number 2 and 3 put together, often as big as numbers 2, 3 and 4 put together. Thats not bad performance in an industry that was so volatile, that it grew 5 times in size in only ten years.

MeeGo may have seen delays, but it had Intel backing it as well. With a simple interface and support of the android marketplace it would have done well and evolved into something better. But you are right it was never good to keep pushing it off. But they had the market share to risk it. RIM finally released BB 10 4 years late and they still have more market share then Microsoft and started with far less then Nokia. Am I saying that they should have held off, I don't know, MeeGo was finally released on one phone that got rave reviews, but never sold in the US. But as I said, Microsoft wasnt even out selling its previous Windows Mobile and you are telling me that was a good desision.

End of year 2010, just as the decision was made to go on board with MS:

Of course it was a shot in the dark because at that time when they realized their mistake there was no way they would be able to get an Android handset to market in a timely manner, at which point, if they manage to get one out (they're still hemorrhaging money mind you), all the other manufacturers would have already carved out their shares of the android market. At best there would enough left over, at worst leaving Nokia with no wind in it's sail and still taking on water. Microsoft was offering something concrete money, an OS, and resources. I'm not saying it was a good decision but it was their best shot at survival given the circumstances.

Of course WP7 was being outsold, it was released Q4 of that year, no one really wanted to support it with an android goldrush going on, which resulted in 2-3 phone models released at it's launch, and the hardware wasn't that great either.